The present invention relates to devices for cooling a person in a hot, humid and uncomfortable environment, and more particularly to an air deflecting device that can be placed in an open window of a hot, humid and uncomfortable passenger compartment of a vehicle such as a car, a train, a bus or the like, for cooling the compartment and the person, by deflecting outside air into the compartment, and into direct impact against various and selected areas of the body of the person.
On such hot and humid days, persons, especially passengers in unairconditioned compartments in vehicles such as cars, trains, buses and the like, generally feel hot, sweaty and uncomfortable. In fact, such an unairconditioned vehicle compartment, when it is directly being heated by radiation from the sun, usually behaves much like an oven. As a result, the temperature inside such a compartment, on such a hot and humid day, may actually be higher than the temperature of the outside air.
This difference between the temperature inside and outside such a compartment can of course be reduced by opening the passenger compartment windows or other ventilation windows in order to help exchange inside for outside air. Doing so will work, provided there is a cross wind or provided the vehicle is moving at a high rate of speed. It will work with a cross wind because cross winds, that is, winds blowing at or close to 90 degrees with the direction of movement of the vehicle, will blow through the open window and into the compartment. It will also work at high speeds because at such speeds, for example, speeds over 35 miles per hour, the flow of air along the vehicle compartment window in the-front-to-back direction will usually be turbulent enough to cause some of the air to effectively flow crosswise into the vehicle compartment.
At lower speeds, however, such as speeds below 31 miles per hour, the flow of air along the vehicle compartment window in the-front-to-back direction is essentially laminar, as opposed to turbulent. As such, the air will tend to move by the window and with the vehicle, but not into the vehicle. Merely opening the passenger compartment windows at such low speeds may therefore not be enough to cause sufficient exchange of the air within the passenger compartment so as to equalize the inside and outside temperatures around the passenger compartment.
Yet, speed limits on most residential area roads are within this low range of speeds at which the air flow is likely to be laminar. In addition, the higher speeds at which air flow is turbulent, are either unsafe, or are prohibited on such residential roads. There is therefore a need, especially within the low or residential area speed range, to cause air, in laminar flow along the open passenger window, to flow crosswise into the passenger compartment in an attempt to equalize the inside and outside temperatures around the compartment. However, merely equalizing the inside and outside temperatures may not be enough to provide the cooling and comfort being sought by a passenger within such compartment, since on hot and humid days, the outside air itself is hot, humid and uncomfortable. Therefore, there is an even greater need at such low speeds at which air flow about a moving vehicle is laminar, to find a way to cause an appreciably strong breeze to blow, not just into the compartment, but directly and strongly into cooling and comforting impact against various and selected areas of the body of a passenger within such a hot, humid and uncomfortable vehicle compartment.